Twilight

The incomprehensible words danced on the screen, separating into floating black squiggles as my eyes began to cross. I blinked quickly to refocus on the words. Would my students ever stop trying to impress me with graduate-school-sized words and sentences instead of clear and readable writing? I shook my head and tried, for the third time, to understand the paragraph-long sentence.

I heard a very loud, very unusual sound and turned rapidly to face the sliding glass door. It was twilight and I could see the deepening blue skies with the snow-capped peaks in the distance. I scanned the area, not seeing anything, and contemplated returning to my computer screen when I heard it again.

Bird, definitely bird, I thought.

I got up and looked out the sliding glass door and didn’t see or hear anything. I crossed to the back of the apartment and went to my roommate’s bedroom door. I looked in and saw him sitting at his desk, headphones on, looking at his laptop. “Hey,” I called in, peering around the door jamb and waved to get his attention. As he removed he headphones, I said, “There’s some strange animal outside. Really loud. I can’t place it.” I walked back to the living room and he followed.

Just as we reached the living room, there it was again. “Sounds like a cat,” he mumbled and shrugged and went back to his room.

Totally not a cat, I thought. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was, though. But, absolutely not a cat.

I crossed to the balcony, opened the door, and stepped out, looking around in the fading light. Nothing.

Around me - above, below, to the side - I could hear other people on their balconies. "It's over there," I heard from above me. "Where is it? What is it?" I heard from beside me. Or was it below me? On the street, I saw people rotating in circles as they scanned the roofs and treetops. Another person was pointing toward the opposite side of the street. On the roof of that apartment building? I didn’t see anything.

"AH-AHHHNNNN AH-AHHHHNNNN AH-AHHHHHNNN," came the air-splitting call. Finally, I had it - a peacock - that's what it was! But, wait, a peacock? I wasn't in India or at a zoo. Or even in that southern Florida town where I'd read about a roving band of peafowl that caused consternation between the neighbors. My balcony faced a side street in a small quiet town on the central coast of California.

"I have a video," I heard a neighbor say, the voice tinged with a bit of a British accent. I thought it came from above me, but I wasn't sure.

I decided to say, loudly, to make sure people heard me, "So many of us out here. Our excitement for the day."

Someone laughed. Definitely above me.

I leaned over the balcony edge to see if I could determine who was talking. Ah, it was above me - directly. Those are the neighbors I rarely see. I think they are married and both consultants, jetting around from city to city. Not sure how or what they consult about.

"I've been watching for about 45 minutes," my directly-above-me neighbor said. As I leaned out and turned my face up to see her, she leaned over and looked down at me. She was in her thirties, dark shoulder-length hair. "I have a lot of photos.” The accent was definitely British.

She turned to look across the street. I followed her gaze. Oh! There it was! Sitting on the top of a streetlight, it's long tail and crown unmistakably the outline of a peacock. It wasn't moving, that I could see. Just perched there. Somehow I didn’t think of peacocks as perching birds, but wasn’t sure what else it would be called.  

"Where is it?" a voice from the street asked. In unison, several of us said, "There, on top of the light pole." I don't know if they also turned toward the bird, arm outstretched, finger pointing. I know I did.

"I don't see it," came the same voice, a bit more plaintively.

Right, I thought. Hard to see a bunch of your neighbors pointing when you cannot really see each other or even know who is talking to you.

"Do you see the light pole across the street?" a deep voice boomed, with a bit of patois in it. Sounded like it was created somewhere in Louisiana, I thought. My mind started ticking off the images of the neighbors I'd shared the elevator with or seen in the laundry room or walking in the courtyard. That voice didn’t fit with any of them.

"Look at the top of the light pole," the deep voice continued lazily, "See the part where the light itself is hanging?"

"I see it!" the person who originally didn't see it called out, almost joyfully. "Thank you!"

By now, the light had faded tremendously. I sighed, wistfully. “I wish it weren’t so dark,” thinking about what a great social media post this would be to share, and not realizing I’d spoken aloud.

Above me, my dark-haired consulting neighbor said, “I have lots of pictures. I even took a video.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Was she offering it to me? I didn’t even know her name. I thought of the time I’d met her husband. I had just moved in a few weeks before and was doing laundry on a Monday afternoon. A man came in to wash a load of bed linens and, after a brief introduction when we determined we lived above and below each other and that he and his wife were not usually home during the week because of their job, we chatted about a leaky washer and the unresponsiveness of the management company. Now I wished we had talked more about him and his family. Like their names.

While I was contemplating what to do, she continued, “I’ve been here for at least an hour. It’s been fascinating.” I stopped playing the memory of the laundry room. She’d been here for an hour? I’d been sitting at my desk all that time. How did I not hear this before? “The bird was over there,” she said, “On that roof.” I looked up over the balcony edge, again twisting my body to see her. She was pointing to the roof of the small apartment building across the street.

“How long was it there?” I asked.

“I’d guess 30-40 minutes. It flew over to the street lamp maybe 15 minutes ago. I was actually wondering if there was another one.” Her voice floated down to me. It was getting harder to see her in the rapidly fading light. “It is hard to see in this light,” she said, as if aware of my thoughts, “But I was sure I heard a call from a different direction.”

Now, that would be really cool, I thought. A roving band of peafowl on our street. What is the name for that, I wondered? Was it another male, a peacock? Or a female – a peahen? Do they make the same sound? Ah, too many questions.

A bright light punctuated the darkness. Someone on the street had a flashlight and was shining it on the bird. “See,” I heard his voice in the distance, “It’s a bird. It’s up there.” I wondered what the bird would do. I wouldn’t like a bright light shining on me if I were trying to roost. Again, I wasn’t sure it was roosting since I knew nothing about the behavior of peafowl, but given the time of day, I assumed it was.

The deep voice from the other balcony resounded down the entire block, “What in heaven’s name do ya’ll think you’re doing? Please leave that bird alone.” I still had no idea who this person was. I was, however, grateful for him looking out for the bird.

The flashlight turned off as did most of the chatting I’d heard on the balconies around me. I stood there for a few more moments, then heard my upstairs neighbor go inside. I, too, went inside and closed the screen door. I sat down at my computer and went back to the paragraph long sentence.